How to make the new housing policy work

The goal of the new housing policy is to ensure that Nigerians own or have access to decent, safe and sanitary housing in a healthy environment with services at affordable cost and secured tenure. However, surveyors say except something is done urgently, the new policy may go the way of past ones, OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE reports

The new housing policy is about the third robust attempt at having a policy that will address the poor housing provision in the country.

The previous ones were dogged by poor decisions, such as the frequent changes in the status, tenure, nomenclature and mandate of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

In a paper, entitled: The New National Housing Policy, an effective framework for its implementation by the pioneer Managing Director of Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and Shelter-Afrique, Nairobi, Kenya, Mr S. P. O. Fortune-Ebie, said the old housing policy didn’t attempt to resolve the lingering gap that stood at about 17 million units in deficit.

Speaking at a housing summit organised by the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors & Valuers (NIESV), he said the old housing policy didn’t address land access and financing, which are keys to housing acquisition, including the lack of appropriate identification and recommendation of construction methodology that is appropriate for the country to increase her housing stock.

He argued that no nation has ever solved its housing problems by a few privileged individuals building their mansions, but rather, it is achieved by the central government directly encouraging the production of houses by pushing out favourable policies that will encourage not only private sector participation but creating a functional and virile mortgage sector that will enable people with verifiable means of income own houses and pay in the long term.

Fortune-Ebie, a surveyor, recalled that as the pioneer managing director of FESTAC Town, Lagos, the agency targeted the poor, middle class and the rich and regretted that succeeding governments couldn’t continue with the idea of the town.

He predicted that if the feat had been replicated in other states, the bourgeoning 17 million housing gap would have been bridged as the houses that sold for N9,000 30 years ago, are now bought at N60 million.

He said: “As an integrated process, the housing delivery demands a coordinated and integrated actors in public and private sector of the economy. Lack of effective coordination and integration of efforts between the housing sector and other relevant ministries, departments and agencies have been the bane of housing development in the country.”

He called for the review of the policy at the end of four years aside the impact assessment, which he canvassed should be carried out bi-annually.

Minister of Land Housing and Urban Development, Ms Ama Pepple, said the concern of government in this new policy is in funding availability, mortgage risk environment, access to financing, improved land titling processes and housing supply. She said her ministry is working with foreign and local partners and the financial services sector to develop a mortgage liquidity facility to make long term funds available to Primary Mortgage Banks.

He said the combined forces of the government and the private sector would add about one million housing units to the national housing stock within the next three years.

The minister, who was represented by a staff member of the ministry Mrs Margret Okolo called on the National Council of State to make regulations under section 46 of the Land Use act to help the implementation of the Act besides addressing the challenge of capacity building for artisans in the construction industry.

She stressed the need to put in place vocational training pro-grammes to address their deficiency.

Earlier, Chairman, NIESV, Faculty of Housing, Chief Kola Akomolede, regretted that housing issues are not taken seriously by the government. He noted the miserly budgetary housing provisions of less than one per cent by the Federal Government while many state government’s fail to have a housing ministry.

He criticised the argument that the private sector should build houses for the people and wondered how a developer who is in business to make profit will build subsidised houses for the poor, which should be the purview of the government.

Akomolede called on the government to confront the three major impediments that stand in the way of access to decent housing for the people, which he noted, as lack of access to land at affordable prices, lack of mortgage for would-be house owners either to build or buy and the high cost of building materials.

A lawyer, Akintoye Adeoye, who spoke on “Private sector role in provision of housing for the masses under the new housing policy”, said two major essentials of land and finance are required for the success of private sector effective participation in housing.

He, however, noted that the impediments to its achievement include corruption, bureaucracy in land administration, challenges of getting relevant bills passed by the National Assembly, lack of funded and viable secondary mortgage market, insufficient data on housing, lack of sufficient incentives for private sector participation and insufficient data on housing.